By recent executive order, all Michigan programs relative to above ground and underground storage tanks will be administered through the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) instead of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). The change became effective on Dec. 2, 2012.

The change is actually a move back to how storage tank programs were administered up until about 15 years ago, when they were moved to the jurisdiction of the DEQ in order to include oversight of contamination issues. While the new change gives program administration back to LARA, contamination issues will continue to be addressed by the DEQ.

Storage tank owners should be aware of the following:

• Tank program staff, other than supervisors, have been transferred to LARA and their contact information will remain the same.
• Forms have been updated to reflect the new agency and a link to forms will be available from the Bureau of Fire Services webpage. During the first six months of the transition, the LARA will accept information on DEQ forms.
• The registration fees and plan review fees should be mailed to the following address: Cashier's Office - UST, P.O. Box 30657, Lansing, MI 48909-8157.  Payments sent to the DEQ's cashier's office will be routed to LARA, so there will be a delay in processing payments and/or plan reviews.
• The LARA site for the tank program is operational.  The DEQ webpages for the tank program will provide a redirect to the new LARA website.   
• The deq-std-tanks@michigan.gov e-mail account is being changed to lara-bfs-std-tanks@michigan.gov .  For the first six months of the transition the e-mail to the former account will be redirected to the new account.  After the transition, the user will get a notification that the deq-std-tanks@michigan.gov  e-mail account is closed and the new e-mail account is to be used.
• The subscribers of the DEQ-STD electronic mailing list will be migrated to a new mailing list with LARA.
• Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests involving the tank programs should be submitted directly to LARA.  FOIA requests are agency specific, and therefore cannot be forwarded from one department to another.  Click here for information regarding the LARA FOIA request process.